Saturday, April 16, 2011

Why Christie's Words Matter

I’m in the midst of reading Hannah Arendt’s works—all of them–for a major multi-year project. While I’ve not been a fan of my governor, to say the least, I’ve tended to see him as fairly smart conservative pol who makes occasional ventures into buffoonery. But one of Arendt’s central points is that we are all moral actors in the political world. We must think, we must judge, but then we MUST act upon those judgements. Governor Christie has now shown himself to be a hate-monger, one who engages in Arendtian “thoughtlessness” (more on this later). He has invoked the rhetoric of Bull Connor, your local thuggish anti-Semite, and a knuckle-dragging misogynist. Christie’s call to violence against Weinberg MUST be denounced in every corner of NJ as well as across the US. Finally, the state Republican Party should replace him as Governor, for as Arendt would observe, he is manifestly unfit to be a state political leader in a supposedly democratic republic.